Bloodless (Aloysius Pendergast #20)(96)
It was all too obvious what had happened.
The beast had veered off. Constance took the opportunity and rushed over, scooped up Frost, carried her inside, and placed her on a sofa. The old woman’s crimson Japanese nightgown was now soaked with blood. There came a shuddering crash from outside as the creature rammed the building, all the windows shattering and throwing glass across the carpets, the entire structure shaking.
At the noise, Frost’s eyes fluttered open. They came into focus, swiveled toward Constance. And then the mortally wounded woman raised one arm and—with a faint crook of the index finger—beckoned her nearer.
The creature rammed the building a second time, plaster falling and cracks running across the walls and ceiling. A chandelier fell with a crash.
Constance knelt. The woman gripped her forearm with surprising strength, staring into her eyes. Her lips moved, but no sound came.
“How,” Constance asked, “can we kill it? It seems almost impervious.”
“It must be…super…”
“What?”
“Superposition,” she gasped. “It…exists in both worlds. But it can be harmed…far more easily in its own.”
The old woman’s hand went limp and slid off hers, falling to the floor.
Constance heard the creature’s scream of rage and saw it heading once again for the balcony. She sprinted for the door as another crash sounded, this one massive, apocalyptic: the beast was beating its wings against the building, clawing at it, shaking it to its foundations. Constance flung open the door to the staircase and fled down it as another blow came; there was a crackle of splintering wood and grinding brick; and then, with a roar of collapse, everything came down around her and there was only darkness.
68
CURSING, COLDMOON FOLLOWED PENDERGAST up the outside pitch of the steeple, grasping one rung after another. He wasn’t normally afraid of heights, but the ladder was badly corroded and he could feel it shifting and groaning under their combined weight. Everything looked so tiny below: the people like ants, their screams faraway…except here, at eye level, the monster itself was enormous, terrifying: flapping and gliding, its bug eyes rotating, that horrible mouth tube sucking in and out. As it passed by, it left in its wake a foul reek of burnt rubber, its talons dripping with gore and tattered clothing.
As it glided northward toward their hotel, Coldmoon, clinging desperately to the railing, could hear the stuttering sound of an automatic weapon, tiny bursts of flame stitching themselves along the underbelly of the beast. This was followed by a muffled roar, the brute screaming in pain as it was struck by a more powerful blast.
They kept climbing until they were just below the top, above the treetops with a clear line of fire in all directions. Looking northward, Coldmoon could see the beast attacking a building, beating its huge wings against it, circling up and dashing itself once more against the structure, screaming all the while. Bricks, broken pieces of wood, and glass flew into the air before falling back into a widening cloud of dust. It swerved off and, with a hideous screech, resumed its circling rampage.
“Jesus,” Coldmoon muttered, more to himself than to Pendergast. It looked like that thing had just taken out the upper floor of their hotel.
The beast began circling toward them again.
“Get ready!” Pendergast cried, wrapping an arm around a rung of the ladder while he pulled out his 1911. Coldmoon did the same, bracing himself, Browning in one hand. There was a sharp snapping sound as one of the attachments to the steeple ladder broke off with a green puff of oxidation. This was followed by another snap. The ladder began to sway.
He couldn’t think of that now. He had to focus on the creature.
It was closing in on the church. Up close it seemed more alien than ever, almost like a projection, with a semitransparent shimmer moving in waves across its dark leathery hide, looking almost like the exoskeleton of an insect.
Coldmoon took a bead as he tried to control his breathing, his pounding heart. As the monster glided past, not fifteen feet from them, he fired one round after another, evenly and carefully, aiming at the creature’s center of mass. He could hear, directly above him, Pendergast’s measured firing as the agent emptied his mag.
The beast was hit. It twisted in midair, emitting a dreadful screech at the upper frequency of audibility, like talons on a blackboard—and came back around, flying straight at them.
“Down!” Pendergast cried.
Coldmoon needed no encouragement. He holstered his Browning and half climbed, half slid down the rungs, the creature closing in. With a judder of metal, the rotten ladder snapped free from a row of fastenings and swung out into space. Coldmoon lost his footing, grabbing desperately at a rung with only his hands as he dangled in limbo, swaying a hundred feet above the ground, bodies and cars below like so many tiny toys…but then it swung back, picking up momentum, and Coldmoon managed to get his feet back on the bottom rung as the ladder slammed against the steep roof. He jumped desperately for the narrow balcony below and fell heavily onto it. It swung wildly away once again with Pendergast still clinging to it. Grasping the parapet, Coldmoon reached out and pulled the senior agent onto the walkway. The two dove into the carillon nest just as the ladder peeled away entirely—and the creature struck the steeple.
There was a shuddering crash and the entire structure jarred sideways with a mighty cracking of wooden beams and a cascade of slate shingles as the top began to shear off.